Brave and the Bold # 2; Fantastic Four # 544; 52

Brave and the Bold # 2
Mark Waid-George Perez

Brave and the Bold was a book I had sort of enjoyed, but kind of ended up deciding it was mediocre enough not to worry about, but on a whim I decided to go ahead and read number 2, and I'm glad I did, because the second entry into the series is a lot better.

The second issue team up is Supergirl and Green Lantern, and grant you I am a big Supergirl fan(though her solo book is a big pile of poo right now), but still the book seemed a lot more lively than the previous entry. There was more humor. The action was better. The second issue seemed to do everything I sort of liked about the first book well. I appears it will be a good series worth checking out monthly, especially in kind of a slow time, like now.

The art still looks really great, though at times it seemed to get overly convuluted in the second issue, and seemed to get harder to tell what was going on, but all the same it was good and I look forward to reading the next entry, which will be Blue Beetle and Batman.

Fantastic Four # 544
Dwayne McDuffie-Paul Pelletier

Fantastic Four was a book my mom actually read as a kid. But I have to say, I've never really been at all interested in any of the dynamics of Marvel's First Family. The whole reason I actually picked this book up, was because it's the "new" fantastic four, with Black Panther and Storm taking over for Sue and Reed Richards who have gone off on a second honeymoon of sorts.

Is this book good? No. Not really. If you're a fan of some of the more scattered cosmological jargon in the Marvel Universe, this book might appeal to you. I couldn't really follow, or care to follow, half of what was going on and where. The Black Panther pointing the Ultimate Nullifier at the Watcher, is kind of silly, and sort of diminshes the history of that weapon.

I thought it would be interesting to see how the two new members who are also married now, played off of Torch and Thing. But really, they just felt like they were out of place. It would sort of be like replacing Robin with The Flash. Yeah the Flash is more interesting than Robin, and can do more things, but the chemistry isn't there.

I think I'll go back to my not reading the Fantastic Four mode, now, thank you.

52

My brief checkback with 52. This series has been amazing. I've loved every minute of it. The zaniness of some of the characters and things that happen from week to week are stupid grin inducing. Black Adam should have his own series in the DCU after this, if not that then he should be the principle villain in the DCU for awhile. I've loved all the arcs of the series.

I fully recommend picking this up in trade when it comes out. It's one of the top books put out by either of the two companies, and it is weekly, which is amazing.

I can't wait for Countdown which will be a similiar weekly series that guess what...counts down to the next major event.

52 right now is leading in DCU's next big event(which techinically already happened since this all takes place in the year between Crisis and One Year Later(I think just reading that sentence convinced anybody who may have wanted something to do with the DCU, to not, ha)) and it is SPECTACULAR. Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison are working on this along with several other top writers. It's amazing. You should be reading it. Or if not, you should be planning on reading it.

All the haters, are just haters. Love me some 52.